G'day Japan! Part 2- ただいま (Here I am!)

With the balloons popped, the music attenuated and the goodbyes done with (excepting one), I found myself at the dawn of the day that I would be going to Japan. A good friend offered a lift to the airport and this was almost my undoing, haha. My friend had an unfortunate locking of the keys in the house incident leading up to check-in time!! A quick scramble however had me making alternate arrangements and all was peachy again.

I met up with a lot of my fellow JETs at the Brisbane domestic (we had to go to Sydney first-blehh let's travel away from our final destination first-woot!) and I got to meet boyfriends, mums, dads, friends et al. which was kinda heartwarming. I enjoyed seeing the spark of pride in the eyes of the dads and the mums of the other JETs. At check-in time I said my final goodbye :(

Before long we were descending into the metropolis of Tokyo. On descent a flood of memories 2 years past came back to me. I remember my first descent into this wonderful city. It was night and the vastness of the lights was mesmerising. The seemingly endless scale of construction was a little scary. How could they power all these cells of humanity and industry? Seeing the vast residential sprawl on my first train ride from Narita to Tokyo reinforced the scale of life in the metropolis that holds roughly the same population as that of my home country of Australia.

Anyway, I digressed didn't I? This time around, I was greeted with a hot and humid Narita morning. After we got our luggage, a good Brisbane JET friend of mine, 'Mie L', and I finally met 'Aichi P', a friend that we made through the forums. He gave us each a 扇子/sensu (Japanese folding fan), which was an awesome welcoming gift that we put to use pretty darn promptly. Mie L and I boarded the bus bound for swanky Keio Plaza. The reality of being in Japan really started to hit on this bus ride. The alien boxy cars, the architectured roadside 緑/midori, the abundant baseball fields, the unfamiliar plantlife, and of course, the signage in asian characters, all together made it sink in.

We got to the hotel and almost everywhere we went there was a smiling Tokyo Orientation Assistant pointing us in the right direction. It felt very heartening to be greeted in such a way by the cornucopia of friendly assistants. After we got settled in, a group of us went out for errands, shopping and lunch. I got a small suitcase to replace my massive carry-on eco bag which had thoroughly 'exploded' by that point in the journey. Lunch at さら福や, Shinjuku was a little bit spectacular. I had a set meal (定食) of Okhosｔk Mackerel (ほっけ), tofu, rice, salad, miso soup, some delicious seaweed thing and a fruit jelly. It was an awesome first meal in Japan. Later that night, we were feeling pretty tired and ended up having a few quiet ones in the hotel. I discovered Asahi Blue label, a brilliant drink.

ほっけ定食 Mackerel Set Meal

The next day was the start of the business end of the orientation. The opening presentations were very good and the mood, despite being official, was counterbalanced with the humour and occasional anecdotes of the presenters. The same day, I met all my fellow newbie Aichi Prefecture JETs which was great; a mixture of cool people from America, America, & America. Day 3 was full of workshops. The ones that I attended were pretty well done, especially the team teaching and teaching to children with disabilities workshops. That night we got to visit the Australian Embassy in Tokyo. That was a really good time. I actually bit the bullet and talked to the big wigs during meal time. They were really friendly, it was just like talking to anyone I have ever met back home as they certainly retained their laid-back, approachable Australian-ness.

The Aichi massive

Brisbane JETs on Embassy visit night.

On the final day we packed up, said goodbyes to our fellow Brisbane JET buddies and flew or shinkansen-ed to our respective posts. I finally met my supervisor and another one of my fellow JETs from 'Podunk' (NOTE: in the interest of protecting everyone's privacy I have chosen to not use my region's proper name). The day was spent setting up house, registering for the alien card, bank account etc., and going out to eat with my fellow Podunk JETs.

And so started my Japanese life. So, what of my posting? Well, my area abounds in rice paddies (they are called 'tanbo' / 田んぼ) which to me hold a special charm of their own. I've found myself often riding home at night (if you do the JET program you will surely spend your initial few days/weeks going out to eat and drink) and as I approach my home, the wind often blows through the tanbo making the rice plants dance, and seemingly, whisper to each other. It's really nice. The novelty of the birds and plants that are alien to my Australian eyes, remains strong still. I often see what I am convinced is the same big ol' Japanese crane having a late night fish in the channel near my house. Damn thing scared the jiminy crickets out of me the first time I saw it, but now I get disappointed whenever it isn't there to say 今晩は/goodnight to, haha.

Turning the key for the first time in my new apartment

My god, the food is ridiculously good. There is no understating the sheer variety of Japanese cuisine. Just like learning Japanese (or any other language for that matter) is a lifelong practice, the same could almost be said for the discovery of all the regional Japanese cuisines and their variants. I guess I will do a brief food blog later-ish, just showing all the different dishes I have encountered so far. One theme that I really enjoy about Japanese (and pan-asian cuisine really) is the interactivity of meal time. By this I mean the options of the diner/s to cook, flavour, mould, fashion etc. their meal by themselves. From shabu-shabu (しゃぶしゃぶ) through to D.I.Y. takoyaki (たこ焼き), Japanese dining is indeed a fun affair.

So now's a good time to stop this installment. There is definitely a need for a G'day Japan Part 3. Next time I will get more into the specifics of school life and the fun outings I have been indulging in.

Well until then, thanks so much for reading. Much love to friends and family back home and my continued thanks to anyone else that stumbles upon and reads my entries.

Thanks again :)

G'day Japan! Part 1-Bye Bye for now Australia.

Damn! The month of July just flew right past. Needless to say, I have been a busy boy, taking care of (in a roughly correct order): finishing up at work, administrating my move from A->J, taking part in official functions, saying goodbyes, saying hellos, attending official functions II, going out to not so official functions, heading out to my new home, meets-greets-and-eats, SHOPPING, school etc.

Glad to say, though, that my writing やる気 is back!

So, hey! Let's start from my last few weeks in the country! June and July were composed of many JET functions and workshops. I was entirely impressed with the group of fellow Brisbane JETs, they were all cool people and after a few workshops together we were pretty good friends. Mostly composed of genki dudes and dudettes, we found a small group of us regularly going out on Fridays (after the workshops) to restaurants and on one occassion a club (Jade Buddah, woot!) The Brisbane Consulate of Japan, thanks to an amazing coordinator, ran a series of excellent, informative workshops on teaching, living, surviving etc. in Japan. Our schedule of things to do rounded out with a visit to the swanky residence of The Consul General in Hamilton. We were pretty lucky to get the privelege.

I am cool. A 7 year said so, so there!

July also saw me finishing up at work. I was sad to say goodbye to the kids at my tutoring job. Especially sad to say goodbye to a few of my little J-culture gang. I was teaching some of them to say おす/osu with a martial arts stance thing going on. It was our little thing that we had, you know? A cheesy, fun little thing. One of the girls was very impressive, making up this part martial arts, part party rock anthem shuffle thing. She called it "everyday I'm osu-ling" replete with shuffling and karate chops, my god(!) it was hilarious. You had to be there. Also loved watching one of the cutest little dudes attempting a flying kick. He managed to jump, maybe, 15 lionhearted centimetres off the ground and kick a stubby legg-ed, 30-degree-from-the-vertical 'flying' kick. Wicked cute!

JapanesePod101.com study group last day.

I was pretty bummed to have to finish one of my little initiatives, the JapanesePod101.com study group. It was a humble little group of dynamic fellow Japanese and English learners. I will especially miss the conversations that we had about our respective languages. Sometimes it was over the top (hilariously so), but I think that both my treasured Japanese participants and fellow Australians, Koreans, Malaysians, Frenchmen etc. got a lot out of the sessions. It is great to know that there exists a genuine interest in language and culture in my community. Thanks a lot guys!

 Next thing was my visit to my parents' place in the dormant volcano region of Childers, home of sugar cane, an obscene 'modern art' eyesore, country town gossip, backpackers and, of course, red dirt (don't forget the red dirt!) I spent a leisurely few just taking in the country scenery of the family farm and saying hello to my pups. I finally got a chance to show the folks the JET introduction video which was a great time. It suddenly became real once we got to see the everyday lives of a variety of participants in a variety of contexts. It really was put together very well and we all enjoyed watching that.
 


Another great experience of Childers was my final (for a long while) drinking session with gracious host, 'B', the parents and a few others at a neighbouring cane farm property. It has become tradition to go and have drinks, share dirty jokes and have some genuine belly laughs up at "B's Beer and Bullshit Bar" (alliteration fans rejoice!) whenever I get up to Childers. That was a hoot as always.

 
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On return from Childers, I hurriedly tied up loose ends and had a fun little going away party on the evening before departure day. It was a shame that a fair contingent of buddies were overseas at the time of the party, but I had an absolute blast with the rest of the great mates I have made in Brisbane over the last handful of years. We enjoyed dinner, drinks, listening to awesome tunes, doing the コマネチ and doing some 書道 calligraphy. It was a nice send off, so thanks for coming guys! 

 

KOMANECH!!

All the shodo calligraphy we did at the party.

Well that is the end of Part 1. Thanks very much for reading. Please tell your friends about this blog, +1, leave a comment etc. Look forward to Part 2 very soon :D Cheers!

..of Kangaroos and Kickin' Tunes 1 - Dazzle Vision ダズルヴィジョン (J-Rock)

Welcome to "...of Kangaroos and Kicking Tunes." For this series I will be exploring various genres of music from all over the globe, but in fitting with the theme of this website, I will obviously be narrowing my focus on the Australian and Japanese music scene mostly. Being an Aussie, I of course have grown up listening to many excellent home-grown bands and artists and I am very excited to share them all with my readers.

On the other 手, I have NOT been especially savvy with the Japanese music scene for most of my music appreciating years, however, I have been putting in a fair amount of 'listening research' and 'performing research' (read: karaoke) over the past two or so years. For Japanese music, my tastes so far lie mostly within the alternative and indie scene which happens to work to this blog's advantage because in a sea of otaku freak-outs over your AKB48s and Morning Musumes, it may be somewhat refreshing to read articles about the artists that exist on the fringe of Japan's underground scene.

So without further ado, let me introduce this edition's band!!

 

Name: Dazzle Vision

Country: Japan 

Style: Rock 

Famous-ness/Prominence: Not particularly well known (yet)

Through all my Japanese band prospecting work, Dazzle Vision stand out as one of my most treasured unearthings. The band was formed in 2003 and is composed of your standard vocalist, bassist, guitarist, and drummer setup. Well, I say standard in reference to the setup, but when it comes to the vocalist, Maiko, she is anything but standard. One of Maiko's and the band's major draw cards is her excellent Operatic-Death Metal voice switching ability. I guess you could call her the Japanese woman version of Serj Tankian (of System of a Down fame), lol. Rather than a gimmick, the use of both her singing voices is done in a way to complement the momentum and emotion of the music driving it. The song VISION (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy3tJAQ2Rrw) would be a shining example of this style.

The band has released a steady stream of EPs and albums from 2003, with their earlier efforts being slightly marred by their initial green-ness. What has been enjoyable to witness, is how their sound has evolved over time, with the last 3 or so years seeing a marked sophistication in their production methods and artistic direction. It is obvious to me that they have always held the goal of producing both rocking-out-hard type songs as well as those epic, lovely songs that pull a little at the heart-strings. Their albums have indeed been getting stronger and stronger, but for me, the breakthrough has been with their latest album 'Kirari.' Again we see the band playing to their strengths as well as mixing in a bit of jazzy rock with 'Miss Cinderella 2' which is enjoyable as a bit of a stand-alone offering. 

In playing with their strengths, the songs "Juunigatsu" (December) and "One for all, All for one" are particularly memorable 'rocking-out-hard' songs and "Tsuki to Taiyou" (Moon and Sun) and "Sakura" are two 'epic-lovely' finishers to a great album. With the exception of "Miss Cinderella 2," the songs slot in together very nicely and definitely produce a consistent and very big sounding album. Can't wait to see what they can do next!!

If you are interested in hearing their music, check out the website, JapanFiles (http://www.japanfiles.com/dazzlevision) 

If you like what you hear, consider supporting this band by buying a few of their songs.

So that'll do it for now! Thanks for reading! If you've got any recommendations, I would love to hear about them in the comments section below!

Rock on!

1000 hits!!!

Thanks very much to everybody for visiting my humble little space. I am thrilled to have already received 1000 hits :D Will be trying my best to continue to bring you some fun entries. For now I will leave you with some news in lieu of a more fleshed out entry that will be coming soonish.

So the news is that I will be working in a small city in Aichi Prefecture 愛知県!! I have been in contact with my supervisor, predecessor and some of the local JETs, and at this stage, it looks like it will be a good place to go.

more to come later...

Daniel

オーストラリアを建てている：NSW州のスノーウィーマウンテンズスキーム。 Constructing Australia: NSW's Snowy Mountains Scheme

第二次世界大戦に続いて、戦後の建設と発展には大量のエネルギーが必要とされました。1949年に、ニューサウスウェールズ州のマレーとマランビージー地域に灌漑の水源を備えるため、また安価な水力発電のエネルギーを発電するために、山間部の水を利用するスノーウィーマウンテンズスキームと言う計画が作られました。 この多目的な、マルチ貯水池システムは、3200平方キロメートルにわたり 、10万人以上の労働者を動員し、25年間もかけて建てられました。 計画開始の時点では、熟練した国内労働者が不足していたので、熟練した外国人労働者を募集するキャンペーンが始められました。この計画と連邦政府の移民計画が、互いに、多くの外国人の家族の移民を促進しました。 総労働人口の３分の2は外国人労働者で占められました。 移民の大半は、ヨーロッパの中央と東からやってきました。 これらの家族の多くは、戦争で荒廃した国を脱出していたので、新しい生活を探していました。 興味深いことに、計画の設計者がノルウェー人、コミッショナーがニュージーランド人、技術長がアングロ・インディアンでした。 地方の団体が、様々なクラブや協会を形成し、文化や英語の授業を無料で提供することによって、移民がオーストラリアの生活習慣に融合することを手伝いました。 ブッシュ詩人のバンジョーパターソンの詩と「スノーウィーリッバーからの男」と言う映画も、スノーウィーマウンテンズスキームの熱心な勤労者から刺激を得て生まれました。 彼らはその地域のために素晴らしい仕事を行い、そしてまた、オーストラリアの歴史の重要な一部です。 

Following World War II, post-war construction and development required a high amount of energy. In 1949, the Snowy Mountains Scheme was established in NSW to utilise the waters of the high country regions to irrigate the Murray and Murrumbigee areas and to cheaply generate large amounts of hydro-electric energy. The multipurpose, multi-reservoir system covers 3200km² and was built by over 100,000 personnel over a 25 year period. At the time of the scheme's inception, there was a national shortage of skilled personnel, so a campaign to recruit skilled foreigners began. Together with the Commonwealth Government's Immigration scheme, the project facilitated the immigration of many foreign families. 2/3 of the final workforce was composed of foreign workers. The majority of the immigrants came from Central and Eastern Europe. Many of these families were escaping their war-torn countries and were looking for a new start in life. Interestingly, the designer for the scheme was a Norweigan, the first Commissioner was a New Zealander and the Chief Engineer was an Anglo-Indian. The migrants were assisted by local organisations in their assimilation into the Australian way of life by forming various clubs and societies and by providing free cultural and English language education. The hard workers of the Snowy Mountains Scheme inspired poems by bush poet, Banjo Patterson and later, a film called The Man from Snowy River. They did a great job for the local region and are an important part of Australian history.

References

"Building the Snowy Scheme - A multi-cultural experience," Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority. Retrieved from http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/doc/snowysch_3.pdf

McHugh, S The Snowy: The People Behind the Power, Melbourne, Heinemann, 1989.

Japanese Mini Lesson 3 - Bicycle!

For some reason, the Japanese have (at least) 3 different ways to say bicycle, all interesting in their own way. The first way to say bicycle is 自転車・じてんしゃ・jiten-sha. The first part of the word, as I read it, comprises 自転 which means rotation on an axis. The last part, 車, represents vehicle. So it may mean "rotation-on-an-axis vehicle." The other way I could read it is by considering the 3 elements separately; 自(self), 転 (turning around), 車 (vehicle) giving "self-turn/ing-vehicle." Personally I prefer the second explanation as it sounds so logical.

The other two names for bicycle made me laugh when I first heard them, showcasing the humour found in the nomenclature of some Japanese words/expressions. The first is the name for the very common bike that has the¯\_-_/¯ のような handlebars (and often sports a smart-looking basket on the front). It is named "ママチャリ" which is composed of "mama" and "bike." A common misconception amongst learners of Japanese is that チャリ is derived from the borrow/外来 word チャリオット・chariot. チャリ actually comes from ちゃりんこ (a word that is interesting enough in itself and worthy of a different installation of "mini Japanese lesson"). This misconception has however opened up a hilarious vision/mnemonic that a few of us have been using. It gives us "Mama's Chariot," you know, the bike that mothers go out and do their errands (用事・you-ji) on. Haha.

The last name I have for you is ケッタマシーン・ketta-mashiin・"kicked-machine". I have been told that this is an expression used in Nagoya. It has purportedly been used since around about the late 60s and the term may not often be used anymore (Japanese source: http://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/90451.html ). I would love to know in which spirit this name was actualised. I fervently hope it was a drunken coining at the meeting of a particularly genius brains trust.

Next time you tell your Japanese friend that you are "going by bike", which term will you use?

Until next time, happy studies.　じゃね～

Japanese Mini Lesson 2: ♥♥♥ Love at first sight / 一目惚れ♥♥♥

一目惚れ / ひとめぼれ / Hitomebore

一目惚れ means to be taken with someone at first sight and is very similar to love at first sight, though some academics argue that it is a slightly less powerful expression. In any case, it would be great to describe someone that was taken aback, had their breath momentarily stolen, deftly walked into a door (etc.) upon the first sight of someone that made their heart skip a beat. Please enjoy the example sentence below.

例 文  /  れいぶん  /  Reibun （Example Sentence）:
激しく雨が降っていたのでケンが傘をさしかけたところ、マイは一目惚れしてしまった。
It was pelting down with rain, and when Ken held out his umbrella to aid Mai, she experienced love at first sight.

Literally--> Violently raining (past) due to, Ken umbrella held out moment, Mai love at first sight did thoroughly.
Literal translations like these are useful for you guys coming to grips with the order of verbs and objects etc. in Japanese sentences.

Hope that was fun! Let's hope someone holds out an umbrella for you during 梅雨!
日本語に頑張ってください！